Direct Orders
by Jayflight111
Summary: Sometimes, when they're not thinking, Fitzsimmons has trouble processing orders. [FitzXSimmons] [WardXSyke, if you squint]


DIRECT ORDERS

_by Jayflight111_

_AN: Only two things guys. One: I love these two. Two: I have trouble not typing Skype whenever I type Skye, so that's... interesting. Let me know what you think!_

_Summary_: Sometimes, when they're not thinking, Fitzsimmons has trouble processing orders.

Ward stood at the edge of the room, watching the duo work. The mission was hindered—no, halted—by the need for the two of them to make serious progress, and while often they felt like their missions were high-action and fast paced enough to fill a TV drama segment, every once and a while they had days like this: days where they just waited for something to happen. Skye always seemed to have something better to do, but he found that he and May often stood around in Fitzsimmons' lab at times like these, trying to subliminally remind the two scientists that their entire mission depended on their genius.

Today, however, Skye joined him and May in staring at the two as they worked, trying to garner some glimmer of hope from all their fruitless efforts. Don't get him wrong, he knows they work hard, and he knows what they do is difficult, but sometimes it just takes too damn long, and they loose everything because of it. So the clock is ticking, and Fitzsimmons knows it.

"So then take the needle and insert it into the left flank of the underside of the microorganism. Right there. You've got it. Steady…" Fitz's voice didn't ever seem to rattle Simmons, as she'd grown to expect it right there beside her ear, giving her all the information she needs. She'd grown to think of Fitz's brain as the other half of hers, and they shared so much it made sense. Without each other they were two shoddy parts of a very valuable whole, and it seemed there were whole parts of her life she couldn't remember if he wasn't there.

He felt similarly, she knew, though they'd never really discussed it. They'd discussed surprisingly little for two people that shared so much. But she liked it that way. It helped them retain distance, and she was sure that too much closeness would lead to bad things, especially on her side. She's not blind—she's seen Fitz, she's spent enough time in his vicinity to occasionally swoon, but she tires really hard to keep it at bay, for the good of the team. And because they're out in the field and she already can't stand the thought of loosing him; imagine how much more unbearable it'd be if they…

They won't though, because if she knows him he won't let it happen either. They're too smart to.

"Alright, now we've got to wait another 3 hours for that to kick in."

This was not clear before now, and so Ward audibly groans.

"Seriously?" Skye's sassy-ness is usually highly appreciated by both of Fitzsimmons, but goes over badly with Ward. Though, Fitz noted recently that he's been responding much better to it. Simmons makes a metal note to ask him about those patterns later in the day.

"What do you say to a break?"

Coulson appears from nowhere. It actually seems to happen quite a bit. If Simmons were to graph the times she expected him to enter against the times he entered just at the right moment, only to say the perfect thing, she's pretty sure the line would be almost perfectly straight in one direction. Remarkable, really. Another thing to talk to Fitz about.

Anyway, on their break, Fitzsimmons goes to the kitchen, where Ward makes coffee and May makes tea. Skye comes out of her room with a warm steaming cup of hot chocolate.

"Where'd you get that?" Fitz can't hold himself back when it comes to hot chocolate.

"What?"

"The cocoa. Where is it?"

"Dude, don't ask questions. My cocoa. Get your own."

Then everyone sits there, drinking in silence, while contemplating all the people that are relying on them for medical supplies in Belize. They don't have much time. Skye swallows and opens her mouth to speak.

"You know what would be fun? Help us get our minds off of things a bit? Punching shit."

"Well, technically speaking, I feel as though that's more of a pastime for someone like Ward. I personally contemplate the complexities of string theory when I'm trying to calm myself down, but I—"

"I think that's a wonderful idea. Fitz, Simmons, you should join the team downstairs for a quick kickboxing session. String theory can wait." Coulson doesn't really give them an option, but still Fitz hesitates.

Fitz contemplates this, looks at Ward's arms and May's thin waist and decides that he could benefit from it all, get in shape, maybe. His mom has always tried to get him to come to aerobics with her, but he always found the whole process of lifting weights demeaning, especially when it made him look like a maggot in comparison to his peers. He liked to think that now he was among friends, and that that changed something, and so now he could try to exercise without feeling looked down upon. It also helped considerably that he knew that Simmons mostly didn't exercise either, so he wouldn't be the odd one out.

So they finish up their drinks and change and soon enough they're downstairs, and they've still got two whole hours to kill when he stands opposite Simmons, and Skye stands opposite May.

"Not gonna lie, this makes me really nervous." And you can hear it in Skye's voice.

"Technically you're the experienced one. You're the only one who stands a chance against Melinda."

"I don't though."

"And Fitzsimmons does?"

"Truth."

So she and Melinda go head to head, and Melinda takes Skye down in a second, causing her to land on her back, (mostly) painlessly.

Then Simmons shakes her head and says, "Yeah, that's not happening. I can hardly lift the gravitational flux generator we have in the back."

"I can attest to that!" Fitz pipes in. He gives Simmons a thumbs up.

Skye pulls herself up from the ground and makes her way to Ward, whispering something in his ear. Fitz takes this moment to look at Simmons knowingly. Another piece of evidence to support their hypothesis that Skye and Ward are having a 'fling'. It's what Fitzsimmons talks about when they feel social.

Ward goes to Simmons, taking her by the shoulder.

"Actually, it's quite simple."

And from there on out he explains empirically how Melinda was able to flip Skye, and gives the most fine-tuned description of it, even naming the muscles and joints and giving the action a clear-cut sequence. He then encourages Simmons to try it on Fitz, and when she does, she executes it perfectly.

"So what you're saying is it's all like a scientific equation?"

"Yes, but there is of course an element that comes instinctually. But a lot of that instinctual bullshit comes through practice."

"Fitz, this may not be as hard as we imagined."

"Tell that to my back."

"Get up, you big baby." She extends him a hand and hoists him up.

Ward convinces them to do a kickboxing round, and gives them all the protective equipment they could possibly need.

"Alright, Fitz, I'll stand behind you and Skye will stand behind Simmons. We'll give you pointers so you know what to do next."

"And I'm stuck with Skye?" She says it, and then she turns around to look at her, "Sorry, no offense, it's just, you're not exactly more experienced…"

"Just turn around!"

They start the round, and Fitz and Simmons begin to follow Ward and Skye's suggestions like direct orders. Melinda leaves but returns with Coulson, watching from afar as the lame little battle occurs. Fitz can't seem to bring himself to hit Simmons hard enough for it to do anything, and Simmons keeps closing her eyes and missing.

"Left, punch her shoulder!"

"You've got him, grab his wrist!"

Simmons actually does this, surprising both Skye and herself. Once she does though, Fitz doesn't feel bad nailing her left shoulder with a punch, and she doesn't hesitate to twist his arm, causing him to groan painfully.

"Oh, sorry Fitz, sorry!" she lets go for half a second, but then Skye yells, "Don't let up! Remember, your goal is to get him on the ground—"

"Hey, that's not fair, you taught her the flippy thing—" He pulls his arm out from her grasp and avoids her next blow, taking a step back. Skye takes this moment to whip out her cell phone camera, recording this moment for all to witness later.

Simmons takes his arm in hers.

"That's right, now remember to contract your triceps just before his shoulder makes contact with your back—"

"Fitz, plant your right foot!"

"Keep pulling that arm over your head!"

"Fitz, come on, you're close."

Pulling Fitz over her body and flipping him seems a lot harder this time than it did last time. She's struggling so much she chooses to turn around wrap her arm around his neck, pulling him to the floor over her own body. They fall onto the ground together.

"Hurry, hurry, get up, sit on him, I don't care what you have to do—make sure he does not get up." Skye yells from the sidelines.

Simmons scrambles out from under him and sits on his stomach, pinning him down for good.

"Great, now lean in for the kiss."

And she does, though it's mostly because she's just used to following Skye's orders. As she's leaning she and Fitz make heavy eye contact, and it's not until they're both halfway to each other that she hears the giggling and pulls away.

"They were actually going to do it!" Coulson declares, laughing hysterically.

"You owe me 30." Skye says to Ward.

"Gladly."

Simmons scrambles off Fitz and stands up, looking at everyone with a stern face before exiting to the lab. Fitz follows her, and rather than laughter, the room's left silent.

She makes it to the lab and crawls down under her desk, curling her body so it fits in that small space. She doesn't start to cry until she hears Fitz's familiar footfalls at the door, and she lets out a sobby-breath when he finds her. He doesn't speak. He knows better than to speak.

"What a cruel practical joke." She says.

"I'm sure they meant no harm. And you were, forgive my phrasing, quite 'kickass' if I do say so myself."

He gets under the desk too, and they're close but not close, as he has his head a respectable distance from hers.

"Skye shouldn't have said what she said though, especially if it made you uncomfortable."

She turns to look at him, confused. "Uncomfortable? I wasn't uncomfortable kissing you, if that's what you're implying. If anything, that's probably why my subconscious acted before I could start to think about the consequences…"

"Right, the damn consequences… Don't I know them well."

She lays her head on his shoulder and he looks down at her, the air from his nose lightly blowing the hair on her forehead.

"I find myself thinking about them all the time." He says. And suddenly, she looks up at him, and there's a sparkle in her eye.

"Me too."

At this revelation, the two look deep into the other's eyes.

"Jem…"

He wraps an arm around her, turning his head to the left as though he already knows she likes to go to her left, too, and her hand draws messy circles on the back of his neck, as though she just knows that that drives him crazy, and all it's like Fitzsimmons is making out with Fitzsimmons, and it's perfect. Because no one else could know Fitzsimmons better.

Once they pull apart, the timer on Fitz's watch goes off and they realize their serum is complete. Both scramble up and return to work, already injecting the serum into bottles as the team arrives to transport them. Once packaged, Coulson, May, Ward, and Skye leave with the packages strapped to their backs, leaving the two scientists alone once again. Fitz throws an arm over Simmons' shoulder.

"I forgot what the consequences were again." Fitz says.

"That we couldn't be the incredible scientists we are if we began to lock lips?"

"That's stupid."

"Right? We're stupid."

She leans in again, smiling into his lips.


End file.
